


Minimal Loss: The Supernatural Remix

by Dr_Harbinger



Series: The Supernatural Remix [1]
Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural, Episode Remix, Episode Tag, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-23
Updated: 2012-09-23
Packaged: 2017-11-14 21:08:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 23,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/519526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dr_Harbinger/pseuds/Dr_Harbinger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Supernatural AU of 4.03 Minimal Loss) It was bad enough that two of Aaron Hotchner's agents were hostages in that cult out in Colorado but add to that the fact that one agent was a vampire and the other an ancient spirit and things just got infinitely more complicated for the Warlock Unit chief.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Note: This story is an unbetaed work. If you see spelling mistakes, grammar mistakes, continuity mistakes or even just non-English spellings of things, that is why. I need to find a Beta some time or another...
> 
> Disclaimer: CBS holds the rights to Criminal Minds and therefore the the copyright of the characters. This is not intended as copyright infringement as this is a non-profit, for entertainment only work.

When Spencer Reid woke up this morning he had has a feeling that today was no going to end well. He could feel a tension in the air that always came as a bad omen and little signs of misfortune kept appearing to him as he went through his morning routine and got ready for their case. As a result he made a concentrated effort to dress as professionally as he could manage with the clothes he brought, slicking back his dark brown hair away from his face and making sure there wasn’t a whisker to be seen or felt along his face, jaw and neck. He even made an effort to preen his metaphysical wings, the tawny feathers coming out straighter and glossier than they had been in a long time. Not that the human eye could see them unless he made a concentrated effort but he had a feeling that today he may just need to show them. After all, he and Prentiss were going to be looking into a cult whose leader was being accused of molesting the young girls in his compound. The religious tended to look favorably on him when he showed them… of course after they shot at him a few times. Being an Ancient Roman spirit of knowledge really had it’s benefits sometimes. 

A knock on his door startled Reid from his thoughts and he stood quickly, gathering his essentials as he went. There was no need for him to take his bag to the interviews, nor was there a need to take his gun. At least, he hoped there was no need. All he took with him was the false ID with his “new” credentials and the hotel room key card. He was hardly surprised when he stepped out of his room to see his annoyed coworker waiting with a hand on her hip. Emily Prentiss wasn’t well known for her patience with others and certainly not with him. Spencer supposed it was because vampires in general didn’t like spirits out of some misguided feud over the definition of immortality or something. 

“Took you long enough,” she said in her typically annoyed morning huff, “Nancy’s going to be here any minute. What were you doing? Checking to make sure your socks were different enough again?”

Spencer wanted to puff up in irritation but as she did have a point as he had done that a few times, well, there was really nothing he could say about that. “I got a bad feeling about today so I wanted to make sure -everything- looked good.” He knew she would understand what he meant. She was not as old as he was as she had actually been born human first, but she was old enough to remember a time when signs like they knew were always taken seriously and it was for good reason. Just because modern people couldn’t read them properly or dismissed them that didn’t mean that they didn’t exist.

All at once the annoyed expression faded into the blank one the world was so familiar with. “What kind of bad feeling? Like ‘it’s going to rain today’ bad or ‘I am sure glad bullets can’t kill me’ bad?”

“Um… most likely the second one so if I were you, I’d definitely bring some extra lotion with you just in case.” Just because most vampires would burn upon contact with the sun that didn’t mean that they weren’t a smart people who figured out a way around that particularly annoying weakness. Reid, being the spirit of knowledge, knew that she carried with her a special UV blocking cream specifically designed for the vampire people and would prevent any skin that came in direct contact with sunlight from instantly bursting into flames. Typically the cream only lasted for twenty four hours though and with the omens he had seen this would last longer than that. He could only hope she could hold back her hunger long enough for them to get her away from the women and children if it really came down to it.

Prentiss’ blank expression turned into a small frown but it didn’t last long as her phone made a noise to indicate she had a text message. “Nancy’s downstairs,” she said, “You had better get going. I’m going to grab the lotion and really hope you’re wrong about this.” Spencer nodded and turned to take the stairs down to the lobby although he knew he was rarely wrong about these kinds of things. He just hoped he was reading the severity of the situation wrong and that, in truth it wouldn’t turn out to be so bad. 

It didn’t take Emily long to join him in the lobby and the pair of them headed out to the car where Nancy London was waiting for them. She, for one, did not know what they were, the locals never did, but if things kept according to plan it would hardly matter. So far as she was concerned they were regular FBI agents from the BAU division studying the behavior of the children that were supposedly being molested. She would never know that she had gotten agents from the supernatural unit of the BAU who had a few more tricks up their sleeves than the average profiler and both Spencer and Prentiss intended to keep it that way.

The actual ride to the compound itself was uneventful. Nancy explained to them the 911 call that had prompted their investigation in the first place and gave a little background on the place. In truth, it didn’t sound any different from any other compound based around religion that Spencer had ever heard of but he supposed that the actual leader made all the difference from one compound to the next. Prentiss made a show of handing her gun and her FBI credentials to him and explaining to Nancy the plan that she had Reid had already decided to put into place in the hotel. They were to use their real names but be introduced as Child Victim Interview Experts. Not the best of plans but certainly the simplest.

Once they reached the small compound, the two agents let Nancy take the lead. Spencer took the chance to look around, picking out what he could learn about the place from just a glance while Prentiss kept an eye on the man who ended up introducing himself as Benjamin Cyrus. The old spirit could see that Emily was being subtle about breathing in his scent and memorizing it to anyone who didn’t know her nature. If this man had been molesting children, Spencer knew that her sensitive nose would be able to find traces of him on them. He just hoped for this Benjamin’s sake that he wasn’t.

The man started talking about how outsiders simply didn’t understand their way of life. It was almost enough to make Spencer snort in disbelief. If one did not explain to the outside world why things were done or even let them see how things were done within a compound then how were they to understand? It was a nasty habit that humans had -hiding information then expecting understanding- that really hadn’t changed much over the centuries. When Nancy said that the man had cited scripture he couldn’t hold back his urge to correct her. Scripture and Benjamin Franklin were two very different sources.

When they were introduced to the man, the old spirit could honestly say that this man reminded him very much of the senators that used to frequent the libraries he watched over in Roman times. His careful choice of words and the cadence in which he spoke sounded soothing to one who didn’t know to be wary of him. Prentiss response was a reflection of that same tone though there was more than a small note of her distaste for the man in her words. “I wish we didn’t have to be here.” Cases with children involved were always the most difficult.

Benjamin didn’t seem to pick up on her distaste of him and extended his welcome to them before he indicated where the children were being kept. Spencer at first stayed behind to make an observation, namely to see how this man would react to him. “You use solar panels?” he asked.

“Yeah, we’re completely self sufficient.” Again Spencer noticed that he used Franklin rather than actual scripture when he gave a quote. It was not a coincidence that was entirely lost on him. “You look surprised.”

“No, I’m impressed actually.”

“Thank you.”

Reid blinked his own surprise against the harshness of the sun. “For what?”

“For admitting that.”

Together the pair of them walked towards the school after that, although Reid did not feel as if he had made much leeway in reading the man just yet. He knew that this cult leader was an intellectual, he had to be to be able to run such a large compound but the continued used of Benjamin Franklin rather than Biblical scripture showed that he was rather good at being able to read others. Either that or he assumed that as they were outsiders, they were not religious therefore quoting Biblical scripture at them would be useless. It made Spencer’s wings shift in agitation behind him as he climbed the steps into the school where Nancy and Emily were already setting up. Something was definitely wrong here but exactly what it was he didn’t know just yet. 

At first the interviews themselves ran smoothly. Every girl answered Emily’s questions in the presence of their mothers (not entirely uncalled for really) and Emily hadn’t been able to trace much of any scent other than their own on each girl. Of course that could have just been because of the perfumes they wore that even Spencer could smell from where he was standing off to the side but he trusted that his vampire coworker could focus her nose passed that and pick up on anything unusual anyway. In a way he was almost jealous of how useful she was right now compared to him. He could read micro expressions but unless he asked the right questions those expressions could be misleading. Prentiss would at least to able to use her other senses to back up her questions.

It wasn’t until a fifteen year old girl named Jessica, the one that Nancy had suspected made the call, sat with them that Prentiss showed any kind of sign that there was some truth to these allegations after all. Her right hand clenched and didn’t unclench when she took a deep breath when the girl sat down, a sign of tension, and her questions were a little more pointed than they had been with the other girls though her tone was no less soothing. Instead of watching the girl, Spencer watched her mother when the woman answered questions, looking for signs of distress or fear in her answers. All he saw was sincerity. 

But then the hard question came up about why they were here and Spencer chose to let Emily answer this. He was no good with delivering this kind of news to anyone and at the moment he really just wanted to look like the assistant everyone thought he was. If he looked meek or somehow lesser, surely they would forget his presence and he would be able to observe people without them worrying about what they were showing. If they thought he wasn’t a threat then there would be no point in threatening him.

“You’re talking about Cyrus” the girl said.

Prentiss immediately seized on the opportunity. “What makes you say that.”

Spencer didn’t need to be able read expressions to tell how desperately the mother was subtly trying to shush her daughter that wouldn’t be shushed and once Jessica explained that a man had a right to take his wife to bed he knew he couldn’t really take personal affront to it. In his time girls much younger than fifteen were taken as wives to men older than Cyrus but they weren’t exactly in his time period. Plus Reid knew that Prentiss, being the alpha female that she was, seemed to take personal offense to the idea that a girl who had no real concept of what she could be would so easily submit to a male’s touch. The prophet bit wasn’t news either but it was disconcerting.

So before things could even think of escalating into an argument he had to interject his tidbit while he could. “Jessica, you’re fifteen years old,” he said, “The state of Colorado requires parental consent.” Although why that part of the law was even included he had no idea. America was as much a land of contradiction as it was a land of “freedom”. 

Prentiss just had to glance at the mother to understand. “She gave consent.”

Before the interview could go any further though, the door to the classroom burst open and Cyrus as well as several of his armed men hurried in, carrying weapons that certainly had no place in a school. Spencer Reid tensed immediately his wings folding more tightly behind him and he could almost feel Prentiss’ body doing the same next to him. They were ordered to stand and while Cyrus deigned to explain the phone call from the press the old spirit had to focus a good deal of his energies in remaining solid while he was unexpected patted down from behind. So this was what the omen was telling them about earlier; this apparent raid that the state was going to engage in while they were here. As a spirit of knowledge, normally Spence had no issue with reporters reporting news as they got it but today… today he really wanted to find a way to strangle the fool that tipped off someone so dangerous about police actions. 

So of course they were surprised by the news when asked directly and Cyrus decided to keep them with the other women and children in the tunnels. The sound of gunfire ringing above their heads really didn’t help the situation and the boxes upon boxes of guns and ammunition certainly didn’t lend well to the idea of a peaceful religious compound. Prentiss asked in quietly about the guns but he had no answers. Garcia had checked with the state police about any pending investigations on the compound and there had been none. Well at least no official ones. This day really wasn’t going their way. Not by any means.

While Reid tried to think of a way out of this situation, he could vaguely hear his coworker speaking with Nancy who seemed to have this idea in her head that she could talk down the police that were trying to raid the compound as she was a state officer. Emily was trying to talk her down, trying to get her to stay and remain calm but it clearly wasn’t working. When Prentiss moved, he moved, not wanting to face being separated but they were blocked from following Nancy up the stairs into the main room. Ordinarily, if there were no human witnesses, they could have very easily taken down the man blocking their path with his gun. As it was they had no choice but to let her go with her stupid ploy. It didn’t take long for it to go wrong. Spencer could clearly see the way Prentiss’ eyes dilated a little bit at the smell of freshly spilled blood so close by. 

From there things just seemed to get worse. He could see that she was having trouble controlling herself with fresh blood so near as more people were taken out by bullets. It hadn’t been all that long since her last drink but vampires were vampires and there was no real controlling that part of the instinct no matter how old you were. So Spencer gently rested his hand on her shoulder and let some of the energy that composed his solid form shock her a little bit through her clothes back into some semblance of normalcy. It was a subtle hint but one that was needed for her to remember where she was and who she was pretending to be. Cyrus tried to explain that it wasn’t them that shot down Nancy but Prentiss’ righteous indignation wouldn’t let her just allow these men to think they could have a firefight with women and children so nearby.

The cult leader and his men grabbed more ammunition and escaladed the fight if the sounds were anything to go by until at long last it seemed to fade. There was a cease fire though what was being yelled after that he could not decipher from where they were. The cult members where they were said that the police were pulling back after a few moments but Spencer knew that wouldn’t last for long. It hadn’t in the past and it wouldn’t now and he muttered as much to Prentiss. The blood she no doubt smelled now was going to fade as the injured were moved to different enclosed areas, hopefully that would help her keep her sanity, but there was no guarantee. Now he had one more thing to plan out: how do you feed a vampire in a crowd full of humans without anyone realizing? Honestly, today was starting to look just as bad as the omens predicted.


	2. QUANTICO, VA

Aaron Hotchner was usually a fairly busy man at the office. As Unit Chief it was his responsibility to make sure the appropriate paperwork was submitted at the right time to the right people and that all this paperwork was filled out correctly and legibly. Combine that with filtering through personal requests from police departments for the help of the BAU on a daily basis and handling office politics it was no wonder that some of his agents seemed to think he lived and breathed his job. In many ways he had to. It was the only way he could handle being in the right mindset day in and day for all these years for his work and still be the man Haley had known and the right daddy for Jack. 

But what many people didn’t know was that he had even more complications with his work as the Unit Chief of the supernatural unit of the BAU that no other unit chief had to deal with. After all, they didn’t need to find and procure special accommodations should a full moon be approaching so that their werewolf agent had someplace safe to transform and lose himself to the beast within until sunrise nor did they have to concern themselves with the availability of a blood bank in the area so that should their vampire either forget or be unable to bring her own supply she would not go on a rage herself and drain half the town. Granted most of the other unit chiefs couldn’t say that one of their closest friends was a very powerful crossroads demon nor that their team had their very own spirit of knowledge just waiting to provide them with the right piece of trivia that could be used to solve the case. A pixie at the computers wasn’t exactly a bad thing either and a pretty nymph working as a media liaison didn’t hurt their chances of being welcomed into smaller districts either. Of course the fact that the same unit chief that handled all of these creatures was a practitioner of black magic himself probably explained a lot but it wasn’t exactly an aspect of himself that Aaron was so inclined to share with those who didn’t already know about it.

On this particular day, he had been on the phone, talking with yet another cop in a small town about a case that hardly looked worthy of FBI attention when Agent Morgan screamed for him from the bull pen. Immediately he got himself excused from the conversation and stepped out of his office, knowing that his agent knew better than to bark like that unless it was absolutely necessary. When he saw the news for himself, after Morgan told him that this was the ranch where he had sent in his agents, he couldn’t help the way his stomach knotted in anxiety. The phones went off in the pen beneath him and he didn’t have to think to know what that meant given this news.

“Alright, that means we’re the lead with hostage rescue and support,” he said as calmly as he could manage, “Let’s go!” He would not leave his agents to chance, especially given what he knew about them. Prentiss was a strong woman and able to handle herself very well under normal circumstances but for a vampire to go too long without nourishment of some kind when surrounded by what essentially would look like fresh meat to her. Spencer would what he could to help her keep her head but spirits of any kind didn’t get along with vampires for long. Why this was, he had no idea but it was something he had been made to keep a close watch on just to make sure nothing broke out between them.

While the rest of his team gathered their go bags from wherever it was they stashed them, Aaron Hotchner hurried back to his office to grab his own go bag that had a few extra ingredients inside. He didn’t know how useful they would be in this given situation as his time to himself would be fairly limited and black magic was generally frowned upon by local law enforcement but he had enough supplies in there for a few spells that could be worth their while and a few healing potions that would work for Prentiss or Reid if either of them were stupid enough to get themselves badly injured in this particular hostage situation. Honestly, though he wondered what it was about his youngest agent that seemed to do nothing but get him taken as a hostage more often than not. It couldn’t just be luck at this rate.

“You know, I always knew something was off with the kid but I just wasn’t able to figure it out until just know.”

Aaron almost visibly started at sudden sound of his old friend walking so close to him as he hadn’t noticed him there before but he was able to keep composed. “Really? What makes you say that?”

Rossi shrugged as they shouldered their way through the crowds of mulling agents into the elevator to get to the garage where the cars were waiting to take them to the airport. “He seems to take on a lot of the team’s bad luck for what he is. Plus his presence here makes no sense. Why would we need a knowledge spirit when we’ve already got a pixie who is almost literally attached to her computers that can access the information we need on a whim?” The doors to the elevator closed and the small enclosed metal box started moving with thankfully only the two of them as passengers. “Then I remembered who had originally summoned him and I can’t say I’m overly surprised by how this ended up so badly mangled.”

Aaron raised a dark eyebrow at his friend. “What’s that supposed to mean? Gideon was good at what he did. He wouldn’t have been part of the FBI’s BAU unit if he wasn’t.” 

“Sure but someone who knew what he was doing probably wouldn’t have butchered the Old Latin rituals to the point where they summoned a genius of knowledge from the now destroyed Alexandria Library and bound it into being the BAU’s protective spirit.”

Hotchner opened his mouth to saw something then closed it and thought over what was said. Given the mindset Gideon had been in at the time it was understandable that he didn’t quite have his mind on what he was doing and Old Latin was a tricky language on the best of days. After all the man had just lost six agents to that explosion in Boston. His subsequent sabbatical from the BAU was not entirely unexpected but his return six months later with a then very new and awkward Doctor Spencer Reid had been. Granted they all grew used to the kid over time as he was slowly but surely was trained into his position as both a BAU member and his place as the guardian spirit he was never supposed to be (not that they knew any of this at the time).

“As guardian spirit he takes on all the bad luck of the team onto himself.”

“Bingo. I knew you had it in your Aaron.”

The warlock frowned but accepted the reassurance as the elevator let them off on the garage floor. The van wasn’t too far ahead and the others were already making their way to it. The team was small enough now that all four of them could easily fit in one. There was no point in taking multiple vehicles. As much as he loathed the idea of the most fragile looking of them taking the majority of the abuse the team faced on his shoulders unless they found Gideon again, there was no way to reverse the spell that had bound Reid into his current duty as the team target. Aaron knew he didn’t have that kind of power, even with Rossi’s help and Old Latin wasn’t exactly his forte either. 

Either of them said another word on the matter as they climbed into the van with Hotchner in the driver’s seat as he was both the ranking member of the team and by far the safest driver with the speeds they needed to drive to make it to the airport on time. They didn’t need to hit the lights. Traffic cleared for them fast enough with what little infernal magic and when they got to the actual airport the plane was ready and waiting. It was a good thing too. Nothing was more dangerous than an anxious werewolf.

The group hurried onboard and waited just long enough for the plane to taxi and take off before they set up their computer so their favorite pixie could reach them as needed in the air. There was no need to worry about their signal being hacked in any way. Garcia had created one of her own using a combination of her innate magic and her hackers’ skills that no mortal could hope to crack. They all knew they should be sleeping as they wouldn’t have much time to do so upon the ground but their anxiety over their trapped teammates was such that they couldn’t hope to sleep any time soon.

They continued to listen to the news for a bit, waiting to hear the full story but Aaron didn’t hear too much of it as he focused more on his notes as to what exactly they were walking into. To be honest, he hadn’t thought much of this cult when he had first heard of it and as such he didn’t think overly much of sending his two most junior agents in for what was supposed to a series of child molestation allegations. But he did look up when there was a mention of a six month weapons investigation and Morgan’s clever question as to how the hell they were not made aware of it.  
JJ seemed to shrug, both pissed off in her nymph way and resigned. “ATF called Wells,” she said and it took Aaron a minute to remember that the name was tied to the lawyer running for office in the state, “He told ATF there were no pending investigations. He lied.”

Even Rossi looked confused by that. “Why?”

JJ looked as if she wanted to throw her hands up in defeat. “Wells is challenging the governor in the next election. He thought the ATF was about to poach his big election launching weapons bust.” Aaron swore to himself he was going to strangle the bastard when he got the opportunity and he was sure he was going to get one. No fool of a civilian was going to endanger his agents without reason. But before he could get too angry about it JJ added “Now it’s clear he didn’t know that there were two FBI agents there. He just thought the best time to serve a state warrant was when the kids were safe inside the school being interviewed.” Her words calmed him a bit but not overly much. 

A quick glance to his old friend showed that he wasn’t the only one pissed off about this and the demon certainly had more of a way with religious fanatics than any of them did. He asked JJ about the sect in question but it was Garcia that answered, dressed in a more subdued version of her pixie self while she explained all that she could find about Liberty Ranch. Morgan explained the meaning of libertarian just in case Rossi didn’t know -as demons, despite the stereotype- didn’t actually have much to do with politics. Rossi was quick to point out that there was no religion involved in that mind set, just a way of life, but Aaron had some information on that. 

“Benjamin Cyrus, the current leader introduced religion eight years ago when Caine left.”

Morgan took that in stride and asked Garcia what they had on Cyrus. Sadly their darling little technical analyst hadn’t been able to find much on him but she did find the man’s predecessor on the ranch. It really was a no brainer. Hotch decided to send someone to interview the man they did have information about. It was their best way to get inside the head of the current leader. He really didn’t care who it was that handled it. He needed to be at the scene, keeping an eye on what was going on with his people. Call him overprotective if you wanted to, he really didn’t care. His coworkers were as much a part of his family as Haley and Jack were back home.

After their little pow wow at the main desk, Aaron couldn’t stand to sit in the sunlight and do nothing so he moved to sit in the single chair in the back of the plane, pausing along the way to search through his small carryon bag for the deck of tarot cards he never left behind. Just a swipe of his hand over the old deck -one he had kept since his parents had incepted him into their ranks as an adult warlock at the age of thirteen- while he shuffled made him feel better although he had yet to read the actual fortune it had to produce for him. To be honest he rarely believed in this kind of magic but it was as comforting a gesture as he was going to get right now where he couldn’t see his wife or son without making them worry excessively.

Exactly how long he shuffled before Rossi took the seat across from him, prompting him to lay down the first card he didn’t know but the card itself wasn’t a particularly good omen. It was the card of the mind, a card telling him of the intellectual hardships he was about to face. It was the card of Sacrifice. He knew it meant a willing one but the title alone unnerved him. Rossi seemed to sense this and reached across the table, catching his wrist before he could grab the next card and lay it out. “Listen to me, Aaron,” Dave said, using the tongue that all black magic spell work was written in so that the others could not understand their words, “Just because this looks bad doesn’t mean it will be. Prentiss is a strong woman and Reid has shown you time and time again that he can handle himself under these kinds of situations.”

It took a moment for Hotchner to remember enough of the language himself to answer back. “I know that in my head but I can’t help feeling like something is going to go wrong. I may not be able to read omens like Reid can but I still have my senses.”

The hand on his wrist squeezed gently for a moment though it wasn’t enough to hurt. “They’ll both be okay, you have to trust in that. Soon, very soon, you’ll have them both back where they belong and you’ll be able to see for yourself that your worries were for nothing.”

Aaron swallowed the small lump that had formed in his throat and nodded, the only sign he was willing to give right now that he’d try his best to do as his friend suggested and the hand on his wrist let go. He went on to add the next tarot card, the card of the body, a sign of the physical troubles he would face and was only mildly disappointed to see that it was a card of the elements that told him of a lack of physical labor. Given the kind of situation they were walking into it wasn’t overly surprising to see this card on his table. Hostage negotiations were never very physically demanding but they did strain the mind and the soul if the person they were negotiating with wasn’t the type to listen to reason.

But it was the last card that threw him off, the card of the heart and emotion. Even Dave’s salt and peppery eyebrows went up at that one. “The lover’s card?” he said, knowing better than to say it where JJ and Morgan could hear, “Really Aaron, I didn’t think you had it in you.”

Hotch made a concentrated effort to not blush but he wasn’t entirely sure it worked. “I honestly have no idea how this is ties into the case.” Okay, well maybe he did know what it meant for him in terms of card reading but he really couldn’t believe that this was happening. According to this card he’d not only have to make a difficult decision but the end result would be that he’d find love in this dire situation. Immediately he thought that it referred to Prentiss as she was first and foremost a single “she” but he quickly dismissed the idea as he personally didn’t have a fetish for the feeling of cold flesh and being bitten hard enough to draw blood. She was attractive but not in a way that appealed to him. Perhaps she reminded him -in personality at the very least- a little too much of himself.

But then that left Spencer Reid and that was a whole different box of traps all together. Not only was he a spirit (and therefore technically incorporeal in his natural state) he was still very distinctly a “he” despite his slender physique, longer hair and wide brown eyes. Now Aaron would willingly admit that he had a thing for those who needed his protection. He may not be a werewolf but he was well aware of his alpha male personality and whoever his partner was had to be someone willing to understand his apparently instinctual need to protect and nurture. Spencer certainly seemed like the type who needed that kind of thing in his “life” as it wasn’t just the body that could be hurt. The trouble came with the very difference in their physical beings, on top of the technicalities of him being the other man’s superior when it came to the office hierarchy. Normally he might consider age a factor but it was difficult to consider it so when it was clear that despite his appearance the genius was much older than he was. Not that outsiders would know the difference but still. 

Aaron shook his head to rid it of these thoughts but Dave had already seen them somehow and was smiling a faintly evil smile in the seat across from him. “Get through this case, get them both out relatively unharmed, and I’ll see what I can do from my end to -uh- help you out with this little situation of yours.” Before Hotch could protest the other man was already standing and making his way back to his original seat to see if he could get in on the small card game JJ and Morgan had started up in an effort to take their minds off things. Sometimes, the unit chief had to admit he hated working with beings that could do that, he really did.  



	3. LIBERTY RANCH - COLORADO

Prentiss had begun pacing once the women and children were allowed to return upstairs but they and a guard were kept in the small ammunition room downstairs and nothing Spencer said or did could get her to calm down. He understood what her problem was, he really did. Despite having never known that kind of hunger himself (or any hunger really) he had watched with his own eyes what having fresh meat dangled in front of a hungry dog could make them do and he was fairly certain it was no different for her. He was fairly certain though that most of the wounded were already moved to a hospital of some kind for treatment and all that she was smelling now was the blood that was already spilled so she’d be able to calm down soon. They’d just have to wait it out.

Still, neither of them could help but feel startled when Cyrus and one of his men came down to their area, talking about those on their side who were wounded or killed. As much as death typically saddened the old spirit, Spencer had to admit that in the world of pure logic it was actually perfectly reasonable for the men who started shooting first to lose their lives. He never understood man’s obsession with violence and war but it seemed so ingrained in them there was no real way of stopping it. 

Even the sight of the small girl that had apparently been orphaned during the fight didn’t deter his logic. She had been orphaned by the ways of mankind. It was sad and tragic in its own way but she wasn’t the first and she most definitely wouldn’t be the last. What bothered him more was the way Benjamin didn’t seem to be overly heart broken by their loss. No he was far more concerned with arming his men for the oncoming battle with guns and ammunition than he was the orphaned girl and the man’s very young -too young- wife. He sent them away to pray while he prepared for war and Spencer didn’t look to look at Emily to know she was already dreading the fight to come. There would be no holding her back with that kind of bloodshed so near by. He would just have to hope that there was some way he could manage to avoid this war all together. 

\----------------------

Meanwhile, about a mile outside of the compound, the rest of the team pulled into the small field headquarters that the local FBI set up for this situation dressed for the weather and all hoping in their own way that things wouldn’t get any worse. Aaron had taken the time to slip his pentagram pendant on underneath his shirt collar, something he only did when one of his own was caught like this and he didn’t have to time for a proper protection spell and the whole drive up to the area, he had tried to force his mind into the role of unit chief and commander of this small headquarters they were up to. The heat of the day was impressive but he would gladly withstand far worse to make sure his team came out safely.

Once everyone was out of the car and Morgan and JJ were out of hearing range, Hotch turned to his old friend yet again. He hated to ask this of the demon but he really didn’t think he could with good conscience make another choice. “They’ve left the choice of negotiators up to me,” he said simply although he was surprised when Rossi didn’t seem to get what he was hinting at right away.

“I taught most of the hostage negotiators unit. You want a recommendation?”

“I’m making you the lead negotiator,” he said, forgoing all semblance of subtly now. There was no point to it. He ignored the surprised look on his friend’s face. “Why go to the students when I have the teacher?”

It seemed to annoy Dave that Aaron clearly didn’t seem a problem with that. “Because the teacher is emotionally involved and so is the agent in command.”

Hotch felt the distinct urge to sigh and run his hands through his dark hair. Instead he did his best to keep what composure he had, especially with the fortune he had read for himself earlier on the plane. “I know I am,” he admitted, “This is a unique situation and we have two agents who could affect the outcome on the inside.” He needed Rossi to understand what he meant now. He couldn’t risk being overly explicit.

“True but I can’t be objective. I know them too well.”

Aaron needed Dave to understand. Maybe things like this were run differently in Hell where everything could so easily be predicted as lower demons and damned souls were rarely as random as they seemed with their deeds but here on Earth, things ran differently. “This outcome depends as much on our ability to predict the moves of Prentiss and Reid as Cyrus. That’s why you’re the best man for the job!”

But of course Rossi wouldn’t be the man who would leave it so easily. “Assuming that Reid and Prentiss are in a condition to make moves.”

Hotch shook his head. “I know how bad this is. That’s why I want you doing the talking.” There was no one else he trusted with the well being of his second family nearly as much as he did this man.

David took a long minute to consider his answer, no doubt weighing the outcomes as he knew them from all his times in the wars of old. He may not have been a clairvoyant but experience was just as good a predictor and psychic abilities could be, apparently. In the end he decided to take the job but Aaron knew he was only doing it to help the vampire and the spirit trapped in the compound. As much as the demon did try to hide it, the warlock knew of his old friend’s soft spot for their pretty vampire under their charge. Perhaps he thought that if he played hero she would be so grateful she would come to him? It really didn’t matter what the motivations were. Hotch just needed to get his people out unharmed. Then he’d worry about the rest of this cult.

But before he could move on and head back to his work preparing for initial contact, Aaron heard a grating voice behind him -someone who thought he had authority in this area- demand to see the person in charge. He would have gladly bet money that the pompous ass was this Wells gentleman that had neglected to tell them earlier about the raid on the compound. He turned to see the attorney general essentially insulting one of the field agents in front of him. As if he wasn’t in a bad enough mood already. This was just the icing on the cake. This insolent civilian dared try to demand information from them when it was the attorney’s own lack of information to the federal agencies that had caused this mess to begin with?

“The only thing you’re in a position to demand is a lawyer,” Aaron told this man coldly, actually having to restrain the urge to curse the bastard within an inch of his life. 

“Who the hell are you?”

Hotch could feel the rage building within him and it showed in the way he raised his voice slightly with every word he spoke. “I’m Aaron Hotchner, unit chief. I’m the guy who’s going to tell the attorney general of the United States whether to charge you with obstructing a federal investigation or negligent homicide.”

“You can’t talk to me like that.”

He had had enough of this man’s attitude. Hotchner stepped close enough to look down on the shorter, older, pompous ass of a civilian and in the coldest voice he could must he ordered the man to get off his crime scene. Violence didn’t even need to be threatened. It was a promise at this point. It took a minute for the guy to get the message and leave but it was a minute already wasted on the likes of which Aaron swore to himself he would never deal with again unless absolutely necessary. 

He waited until the man left before going back to what he was doing before and making introductions with the local agent and his friend. Apparently the local had worked with Rossi before which meant that he at least was aware of his nature and therefore the nature of this particular BAU unit that was summoned. That was alright. It meant less explanation if things were said on the inside that were not for outsiders to hear. The man brought them up to speed on what they had going now that this headquarters had been set up, including sending the state police that started this mess away so they couldn’t start a round two. The sheriff was being used for support and there was talk of the compound using solar panels with which they could keep track of the news stations. Rossi advised against shooting them out but Aaron couldn’t say that was so sure he agreed with that. The bad feeling from earlier was coming on more strongly now. Whatever was going to happen was going to happen soon. He just hoped his friend knew what he was doing. 

“I’ll get JJ to talk to the press,” he ended up saying, “Your men, are they ready to be briefed?”

At the nod he got in response all Aaron could bring himself to do was get this underway. The sooner they made contact and heard the demands, the soon he could get his people back and this mini-hell he was in could go away. But first there was a briefing to be done.

They made their way to a small interior room, away from any semblance of non-negotiators and the team explained to the local ground units their strategy: the minimal loss scenario. Morgan explained how a cult hierarchy worked and how the followers, those at the bottom of the pyramid, there the ones that they were going to try and save today. Aaron did his part and explained the rain-trickle-gush way of getting hostages out of this kind of situation but in truth his heart wasn’t anywhere near his explanation. There was a suggestion that he didn’t quite hear and he could hear Rossi agree with whatever it was saying it demilitarized the situation and that made it easier on all of them. If only it could really be that easy.

\---------------------

Later that night they made contact for the first time with the cult it was hard on him to hear the voice of a child speaking first. This bastard certainly knew his way around human emotion but Aaron knew that Rossi was better. In the time it had taken for night to fall after their initial arrival he had had the team gather their bags and prepare for the next few days. As this particular liaison with them knew of their natures, or at least knew they were not entirely human the way they were supposed to be, Aaron decided that for his sanity and the sanity of his team that he should attempt a spell that would link them all telepathically at least temporarily. He had some samples of Prentiss’ DNA and Reid’s spiritual energy would be easy to find. The spell itself was not uncomfortable for those involved and it was a simple one to hand without a lot of ritual or fancy wording. He just had to burn trace amounts of the DNA and essentially weave some magic that would connect all their minds. 

Morgan, Rossi and JJ immediately recognized the connection and just accepted it for what it was. While they did mostly stick to speaking out loud to each other it was their connection to their team members inside that was most important, especially when first contact was made. Although it was distant -probably caused by the stage of decay of the DNA sources he was using- they could all feel the presence of the minds of their colleagues in the compound… at least enough to tell that they were alive. Aaron didn’t breathe a sigh of relief. Not yet. 

When Benjamin addressed Rossi, his voice sounded as sly as their own demon’s did when a plan was going just the way he wanted it to go. The two of them spoke, Rossi reassuring the man that all they wanted to do was talk while the cult leader demanded that they be left alone. Such a shame they couldn’t let that happen what with the officer that died en route. The people were going to demand blood for that, not to mention the friends and family that officer had left behind. The more these two spoke, the more Aaron was able to focus on his personal connection with his agents on the inside. He could feel their surprise at the connection and the way they reached back almost desperately. Hold on, he told them in his thoughts, we have to make this official. We’re working as quickly as we can.

It didn’t take long for Dave to turn their man’s attention back to the real reason they were there. “Now the three Child Services workers.”

“One of them is dead.” The demon’s shoulders fell marginally even as his opponent in this sick game of chess added “It wasn’t us.” Morgan snorted and crossed his arms over his broad chest. Hotch couldn’t help but agree. It hardly mattered whose fault it was. An unarmed bystander in this private war was dead although it was pretty easy to guess which one it was. 

Still, for the sake of the recording and the humans around them Rossi had to clarify. “I need a name. To inform the family.” 

“Her name was Nancy London.”

As Morgan and JJ did not have as strong a connection with Reid and Prentiss on the inside (as their abilities were more tied to natural than the supernatural) they did not know that their friends were alright. At the sound of the third woman’s name they both breathed a quiet sigh of relief that could not be heard over the phone. The confirmation did Aaron some good too although there was no sign that it meant his people were alright too. 

Dave continued to talk with the man, now about tending to the wounded within the compound. He tried to convince the other to send them out to be treated properly in a hospital but Cyrus had his own ideas and instead asked for supplies to be sent to him. They probably had a doctor on the premises, they would have to in order to be entirely self sustaining, but that didn’t mean that the doctor could handle the sheer volume of patients they had now. Wherever these wounded here being kept Hotch could only hope that they were kept far away from Prentiss. The blood of the dead didn’t bother her senses but a large number of wounded, living victims, especially with this many hours since her last drink, he didn’t know if she could hold back the instinct for long. From what he could tell they were far enough away that she was still herself but how long that was going to last he had no idea.

In the end it was decided that Rossi would bring the supplies in the morning to the compound himself and the unit chief in Aaron wanted immediately to protest. He couldn’t risk getting a third agent captured. He had enough difficulty handling the idea of the two already in there. But at the same time there was a reason why he chose his friend for the job and who better than to speak to a damned man in preacher’s clothing than a demon who would likely be the one escorting him to Gates (if this turned out the way he got the feeling it would). 

The connection was severed but their night was far from over. While JJ did whatever it was she was doing off site (Aaron didn’t want to purposely prod her thoughts about that as it was an unspoken rule that none of them would violate each other’s privacy like that) the three men went back into the trailer they were using as their indoor headquarters to discuss what they had learned. Morgan wanted to go with Rossi the next morning to take the supplies but the entire point of the exercise was to build trust and therefore what was said had to meant and promised deeds were done exactly. 

There also was talk of using devices to pick up the audio vibrations on the windows to hear what was going on inside but that idea was shot down just as readily. Aaron tried to think of something he could use that wasn’t too intimately tied to the magics but there was nothing that came to him right off the top of his head. The local asking him about how familiar his agents were with their playbook pulled him out of his thoughts. “The BAU wrote the circ handbook. They’ll know we’re trying to get ears in there at all times.”

“Good. Let’s hope that they can get these people talkin’.”

There was no question in his mind as to their ability to do that much. “They will,” he promised.


	4. Chapter 4

Spencer was startled awake the next morning by the sound of Prentiss cursing up a storm. At first he thought something was seriously wrong but with a closer look he realized it was just her normal cursing that came with the rise of the morning sun as she tried to quickly smear the UV blocking cream over herself before anyone came for them. She had her blouse open a little bit more than usual and the sleeves rolled up. Immediately he adverted his eyes and curled himself a little more tightly where he was laying. He may not be human in the strictest sense but even ancient spirits could feel attraction and crave the hand of a lover. It was why the old gods that had first created him had given him the ability to take a solid form if he wanted. Right now, he kind of wished he could allow himself to disappear completely while she handled this. As it was the best he could do was hide himself in his wings but he had no idea if and when the cultists were going to return so he kept them folded away still.

The rustle of her clothing was distracting so instead he focused on something else, anything else, to keep his attention focused on something that couldn’t cause embarrassing images to flood the minds of others as was sometimes wont to happen if one of them just wasn’t paying attention enough to put up a barrier. He didn’t want to think about their situation right this second. He would be doing enough of that when the day really got started. No he was far more concerned about how Hotch was taking this. The man always did take matters like this personally and as he and Prentiss were here, chances were that their unit in the BAU was the point for this particular hostage situation. In a way that inspired confidence but in another…

It was no secret to him that he found Aaron Hotchner to be an attractive man. He was tall and strong like the Nordic peoples he clearly descended from and his strength was not just in body but in spirit too. He was handsome in a way that some might find intimidating but as stoic as he tried to be at all times, Spencer knew that deep down he was a deeply loving, goofy guy who had simply been hardened by the years he had spent getting into the minds of the worst people society had to offer and seeing the mangled bodies of people who could easily be his wife or son. If the circumstances they had met under were different, or at least where they were in their respective private lives, he could very easily see himself making advances on the human. As it was, he had to be content with working with the man and admiring him from afar as he was not so uncouth as to make advances not only while the warlock was unavailable but also when he was so happy with his wife and child. He was not so low as to upset a marriage for his own selfish reasons.

“You don’t have to turn away you know,” Emily said, pulling Spencer out of his thoughts, “I know I’m not your cup of tea and even if you did try something, being dead already means that I don’t have to worry about the consequences of killing you.”

He lifted his head and twisted around to look at him over his shoulder just as she buttoned up her shirt again, his brown eyebrows furrowed. What did she mean by that? “Not my cup of tea…?” 

Emily tucked the cream into her clothes again, slipping it into a hidden pocket. She laughed at him in a way that said he was amusing without being condescending about it. “You know for being a genius, you can be a moron sometimes.”

“Hey!”

She looked at him with her dark brown eyes glittering with mirth, a smirk tugging at the corners of her mouth. “You mean you don’t know? You haven’t picked up on what pretty much everyone else has.”

He tried to say something, he really did, but his words kept getting caught in his throat. What gave him away? He thought he was so very careful to hide how he felt. He had centuries of practice. Aaron Hotchner was not the first human to have caught his eye but he was certainly one of the most handsome. Perhaps he had accidentally made himself obvious through some gesture he hadn’t thought much of.

“Don’t worry about it. None of us have a problem with what you do in your private time. Though I do kinda wonder how many people know it’s Hotch you’ve got that big ole crush on.”  
Before Spencer could respond one of the cultists came into the room, telling them to get up and come with them to the chapel. Thankfully Emily was already dressed and Spencer’s appearance didn’t change unless he wanted it to. They got up quickly to do what was requested, being careful as to avoid unnecessary eye contact. Without Hotch in the immediate room, their own telepathic link was minimal. In truth it worked more like empathy than telepathy but it worked well enough. 

They were made to sit in a pair of chairs closer to the wall on the far side of the wall to wait. Presumably there was a reason they were brought up here that had something to do with what was going on outside. At least they weren’t being held at gunpoint right this second. Spencer had to admit to himself that although guns couldn’t kill him they’d still hurt like the greatest torments of the Underworld. Besides, he doubted there would be shooting going on this early in the morning with so many people in the chapel to actually pray. He could feel Emily tensing next to him, not due to the religious symbols but due to the spell of spilt blood in the room. Oh dear. This really wasn’t going to end well if they had to draw it out too much longer.

They waited perhaps ten minutes until there was a knock on the door and someone from the outside with a box of supplies stepped in. Both the supernatural entities sat up straighter. Rossi in a chapel? It was an interesting notion, even if it was just temporarily. But whereas Spencer was a spirit created before Christianity was even a religion therefore this Christian temple held no power over him, Rossi had been created shortly after its creation. Logically he should feel pressure and burn a little upon contact with the consecrated ground but he wondered if the grounds, now that blood had been stained on them, had lost their Holy power and therefore weren’t affecting the demon. 

Rossi handed over a box that looked like it had supplies in it and he was searched for weapons. As if he would need any if he truly felt threatened by this Cyrus guy but the “church” didn’t know that so they treated him like any other human. He waited until Ben walked him down the isle to show him the people gathered and for a moment, Rossi’s eyes met Spencer and Emily’s. Time seemed to stay still and for a few moments the bond between them, their telepathy, strengthened. Are you alright? Rossi asked them in their minds.

Both knew better than to nod but they send their affirmations. Although there was one thing that was concerning Spencer. Emily hasn’t had blood since before we were sent in here, he said, and with the fire fight earlier… I don’t know how much longer she can hold out before she needs to feed again. The old spirit could feel the lady vampire’s glare on his face but he chose to ignore it. It was an important concern, regardless of what she may have to say in the matter. Rossi blinked his confirmation before he let time continue on it’s normal course and turned his attention to Benjamin who didn’t seem to notice the shift. That was alright. Most humans did not. 

“I was hoping hoping you’d let me take the children,” he said as he walked and Spencer kept a close watch on Benjamin’s expressions as he answered. If needed he and Prentiss would be more than willing to use their supernatural force to take the man down but it was to be done as an absolute last resort. 

It was unsurprising when he said no. “They are our protection,” he cult leader explained, “I remember Waco. We all do.”

Rossi’s pause to speak sincerely with Ben got them talking too quietly for the genius to hear so he turned to Emily who no doubt could still hear the conversation. “He wants to pray for guidance,” she said after a minute, “although I don’t know what kind of good that will do him.” He had a plan. Both agents knew he was no doubt stalling for time although Rossi, for now, seemed content to play along with him. Probably because to use his power would be to show that this lunatic had been right all along. 

They walked back toward the door, Benjamin giving Dave a message to bring to the outside world. Spencer wanted to roll his eyes at the clichéd nature of it. “Tell them I’m not crazy.” Yes sir, you are. “I’m just a man living by God’s law.” Certainly not the Judeo-Christian god. He would know. He had seen what real men who followed that law would be doing in the same situation and this armed cult certainly wasn’t it.

 

The two shook hands as Rossi left and for a moment Spencer wondered if some kind of contract had been made. He looked to Emily who shook her head minutely. No deal. This human wasn’t under Rossi’s spell even if it was to a minute degree. Damn. It was looking more and more like they would have to force their way out of here. 

As soon as their fellow agent was out of sight, Ben turned to his men and ordered that the wine be prepared. Although he had personally never had wine -due to his status as a spirit- Spencer had heard that wine in and of itself was an acquired taste and he knew the law stated that only adults over the age of 21 could participate in the consumption of it in the U.S. Now some religions other than this group would allow it for congregation members under twenty one upon their ceremony into adulthood but those were fairly rare. Prentiss had had wine before. Her stomach could tolerate small amounts of it at a time. He had seen her drink the stuff at special occasions. His aura, he knew, would feel uncertain but when he focused on Emily’s it radiated calm and a little annoyance.

Roughly the two men with the guns had them get up to stand at the back of the church while the rest of the compound’s members filed in, filling up the little wooden chairs acting as pews one by one. Plastic cups were handed out and Cyrus began pouring wine for each of them while he spoke of reason for celebration. Spencer stood with his arms folded over his abdomen and Prentiss stood in the shade with her hands in her pockets. They both watched carefully the reactions of the supposed preacher and his congregation as he spoke. There was something wrong but Spencer couldn’t tell what. 

When Benjamin poured the wine for Jessica, the girl who was meant to be his wife, Prentiss turned to her partner and said “Look at Jessica’s body language.” His brown eyes focused on a girl far too young to be the wife of a man like that by modern standards and frowned at the signs he saw. “She literally worships him,” he replied, “There is no way she made that 911 phone call.” The call that got them caught in this mess. That meant someone else made the call, someone who recognized that it was wrong and was trying to help this clearly brainwashed girl.

The preacher walked back to the altar after he finished, talking about trust in God, pulling both creatures out of their inner thoughts to focus on him. At least they were until the girl’s mother stood to stand between the two while Ben gave his speech. Jessica tried to look around the woman but her mother just wasn’t letting it happen. It was an easy sign to see but was incongruent with what they had already learned during the interviews. It was the mother that didn’t approve of this union, even though she had to give her consent for the marriage to happen in the first place?

“Drink to acknowledge Him and I will guide our way.”

Everyone who held a plastic cup drank it down, some just a mouthful and others the whole cup. Prentiss tensed next to him and Spencer’s old eyes watched carefully for signs of illness. He really hated doing things the human way sometimes. It made situations like this that much more dangerous. 

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Back at the base Aaron Hotchner was in the middle of planning their next strategically move when Rossi came jogging into the room. “Reid and Prentiss are okay,” he said. That much was a relief but as long as their in the compound that didn’t mean it would last for every long. Cults were difficult to predict for a reason.

“What about Cyrus?”

Rossi shook his head and his body language started to echo of discomfort as he stepped closer to his coworkers. “He’s too calm. It’s like he was waiting for this to happen and now that it has he feels vindicated.”  
One of the tech men said that their machines were getting a signal as to what exactly was spoken inside the cult. Even with his ability to enable telepathy amongst the team on the outside of it he couldn’t hear the thoughts of the two inside the compound very well and he didn’t have much with him that could boost that strength. He could feel their presence and for now they were out of harms away and alive but if they stepped much further away than where they were to were placed underground there was a chance he’d lose that connection entirely. His spell was weakening over time. He’d have to make note to re supply his DNA samples when they got back to Quantico. 

The speakers were switched on and all three of them took a seat. Benjamin’s voice filled the room “We will be with Him soon,” he was saying, “We drank the poison together.” Aaron’s whole body tensed at those words. Was it just his cult that drank it or did his people drink it too. Poisons had little effect on Prentiss as her blood didn’t flow because her heart didn’t beat unless she overexerted herself but Reid, to maintain a tangible human form, had the entire system going. He didn’t know of ancient spirits could die but he really wasn’t willing to let this psycho test it out.

He wanted to say something to order some kind of action to save his people but he knew such a thing would just play right into the man’s hands. Innocent people would die, a further taint on his soul, and there was a chance that the two agents he had inside the church would get caught in the crossfire as well trying to save as many humans as they could. Instead he could only sit and listen, waiting to hear what else this man was going to say and concentrate on that small thread of emotional communication between him and the three inside. The vampire felt confused but the spirit was unnerved. He had probably seen something like this happen for too often.

“Mothers,” Cyrus continued, “Fathers, children, though we walk through the valley of the shadow of Death, we fear no Evil for Thou are with us.”

Rossi seemed startled by this turn of events too. He had centuries of experience reading body language and understanding human behavior. Aaron could imagine how startled he’d be too if he had misread something so drastic. “This doesn’t fit!” he demon was saying, even going to far as to gesticulate which wasn’t something he did often, “I looked him in the eye! He was calm, lucid.”

Aaron turned to the local, trying to keep himself calm as he reported to the man that the group was committing mass suicide. 

“We don’t know that for sure.”

Morgan wasn’t as old and the demon, nor did he understand the male as much as Aaron did. “Rossi, he just said.”

The local agent said that they were ready to go but Rossi wasn’t ready to just let them. “If we go in, people are gonna die!”

“People are already dying!” The warlock snapped back and prayed to the deity he did believe in that his friend was right. He had far too many deaths of innocents to weight down his mind. He didn’t need an entire cult to add to them.


	5. Chapter 5

“And God will wipe the tears from their eyes and there will be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crime,” Cyrus told the congregation as he watched carefully their reactions to his words, reassuring them that there was nothing to fear while letting them think they were dying, “And there will be no more pain for all the former things have passed away.” It was unnerving to watch the man work his magic over these people who, had they been a part of any other religion, would never had had to dealt with this sociopath manipulating them into this small war zone.

Emily turned to Spencer, her hands flexing in her pockets, wanting to do something but Spencer couldn’t risk holding onto her arm to calm the flexing before her nails tore a hole in her clothes. “What do we do?” he whispered to him and Spencer looked over the crowed, using the knowledge he had accumulated over the centuries to gauge what kind of poison the people had taken. Almost all of them would have shown some kind of minute symptom by now, especially in the high metabolisms of the children. But what really caught his eye was the man at the altar, a notepad and pen in his hands as he copied down some kind of notes. 

“Nothing,” he ended up whispering back, keeping his eyes focused on that particular cultist. He couldn’t quite decipher what the man was writing from here.

“We have to do something! These people just took poison!” Really. He would have thought her nose would be better than that. 

“Cyrus just told them that they did. I think he’s bluffing.”

“Why do you think that?”

To avoid being caught staring he turned his brown gaze on his partner for this case for just a moment before joining her in looking up at them. “Just after he told them about the poison, he waited for them to start to react. Then he nodded to Cole who started writing.” He felt a bit better now but not by much. “Look. They’re scanning the audience for reactions.”

“And writing down the names of the people who are crying?”

“It’s a loyalty list.”

“So he knows who will follow him to the end.” No matter how violent that end may be. Spencer was really starting to hate cults of any kind in the modern day. So few of them turned out to benefit the people who participated which meant that, in his eyes, their purpose was defeated.

After a few minutes Benjamin told his followers the truth, that there was no poison in the wine they drank though the old spirit supposed that technically to the body the wine itself was a minor poison to the body but he’d let that one slide for now. “Instead, a test of faith because your adversary the Devil, walketh about as a roaring lion, choosing who he may devour.” Spencer had to give the man credit, he was a good speaker. But then again so was Hitler. That didn’t make either of them any less evil by humanity’s definition of the word. “Watch each other for signs of weakness. You are your brother’s keeper.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The headache Aaron Hotchner felt coming on was going to be of epic proportions. First Rossi had been yelling at him that this was a test run but, out of concern for the people inside he gave the order for Dan to prepare his men. Now that there was no poison in the systems of those men, women and children he had to give the order for the men to stand down and he could feel the stress starting to take its toll. He felt ready to cry over something but he couldn’t let it happen so he forced himself to bottle it up. He knew that Dave would help him out later with venting it. The demon was always good for a few rounds of sparing in the gym. 

Then JJ arrived, telling them that the form SAC was there, the man that had been in charge of the cult before Benjamin had ever reared his head and taken control of this many men, women and children to lead to this mess. Honestly Aaron thought the man looked more like a mad scientist than any kind of religious leader but appearances could be deceiving. He listened carefully to the man’s words from out of sight while Morgan got him talking about who they were up against, a Charles Mulgrew rather than a Benjamin Cyrus.

“His mother was five months pregnant when she showed up at our doorstep,” the man said, “He turned out to be one of the smart ones. Amazing memory that kid had. Anything he read he could repeat back to ya and he did. Mouthy little son of a bitch.” It was eerie sometimes to hear that there were humans with the same kind of memory as their genius professed to have and used it for such sinister purposes.

“Why did you leave the ranch?” Morgan asked the prisoner.

“When he was 17, a couple of our young girls came to me and said that he had been messing with them.”

“You mean sexually?”

“Yes sir I do.”

Aaron wrinkled his nose in disgust at the very idea that it was still going on now but it was secondary concern to the interview. He could hear the rustle of Dave’s clothing as he shifted his weight too. Even demons didn’t agree with animals who preyed on children. Well, some demons anyway. 

“Now don’t get me wrong,” the prisoner continued, “I’m libertarian but those little girls were too young for a 17 year old to be messin’ with.”

“So you kicked him out.”

“Yes sir I did.” Well at least the man at one redeeming quality to him. “His mother took him to Kentucky. Hadn’t heard anything from him for years until he finally showed up again and said his mother had died, he had found God and he wanted to come home.”

This seemed to confuse the werewolf but Aaron supposed that wasn’t much of a surprise. He was a bit confused about how that change of power happened too. “How does a kid like that get rid-a you?”

The man didn’t take too much offense to this. “One day he came to me and said God told him that I should leave the ranch. I said that if God felt that way He could tell me Himself. He put a gun to my head and said ‘He just did.’” Well that was one way to do it. But the prisoner wasn’t done yet. “It took me twenty years to build that ranch. I’ll do anything I can to help you send that ungrateful son of a bitch straight to Hell.”

Morgan seemed to accept this man’s anger and asked for a map. Aaron decided he didn’t need to watch this anymore and left the room. They needed to get as much information about Charles McGrew as possible and their resident fae would no doubt he able to find every scrap of dirty laundry there was on the bastard. He put in the phone call to her for the information, not letting himself linger as he made his way back to the main conference room with JJ. Nymphs were not well known for handling pressure well. It was why they generally stuck to the woods.

JJ was sitting at a table, no doubt looking over reports and cataloguing everything that was going on while the local agent and his SWAT unit got ready for what was probably the inevitable raid. Even without their telepathic link Aaron could see the tension in her shoulders and her need to lay down for even a few minutes amongst the trees and bushes in the sun. He wouldn’t touch her, he wouldn’t dare incur the wrath of her chosen mate like that, but he could use their current link to his advantage to help her out.

As he poured himself a cup of coffee he gently brushed against her mental barrier with his thoughts and she, no doubt needing some kind of relief, let him in. How are you holding up? he thought, not making eye contact but not needing to as he moved on to find something to eat in the form of a sandwich. This psychic linking was pretty draining. I know this isn’t easy for you but we’ll get there. We’ll get them out safe and sound. You don’t need to worry about that.

JJ seemed to sigh and undid her pony tail only to tie her blond hair up again. I know, I know. I just don’t like being so helpless, unable to do anything, when my brother and sister are in so far over their heads. It had taken some getting used to having the team be called her “siblings” but after Spencer had explained nymph culture to him it didn’t seem so strange. It meant that they were close but not potential romantic partners. He was okay with being called her brother if it meant not having to worry about feuds from minor gods or goddesses over whose order she should obey first. 

Spencer and Emily are smart, he continued to assure her as he found his food and took a seat, facing away from her to eat, They probably have some idea what we’re planning and are just waiting for a confirmation from us. They’ll find a way to get through this and so will we. He felt a wave of relief coming from JJ although her tension wasn’t completely gone. It would have to do for now. Until their agents were home that tension wouldn’t be leaving anyone’s shoulders completely.

Aaron finished his small meal in silence just as his phone rang and Rossi and Morgan walked back into the room. She had information for them on their cultist. “Charles Mulgrew was convicted in Kentucky at the age of 18, three count statutory rape.” Well that figured.

“So we need to talk to the warden.” Morgan said, sounding at once calm and annoyed. Oh this wasn’t going to end well for somebody. 

“Way ahead of you honey,” Garcia continued, “Mister Kentucky Warden said that once inside Mulgrew found religion; became a model citizen.”

Bullshit. “Well it’s not that hard to behave when you’re in protective custody the whole time.” 

“General population is a rough place for a child molester,” Aaron added. Not that he had a problem with it. Not at all.

“No, no I don’t think you guys understand,” the pixie interjected quickly, “He was a model citizen. This guy volunteered at the prison hospital at the AIDS ward; he read to prisoners dying of HIV.”

Well that was something useful. “Good stuff,” Morgan told her, the closest to flirting he’d get in such a tense situation with so many people in hearing range.

Garcia seemed to feel the pressure just as much back in Virginia. “Damn straight. Now get our friends back baby.”

The phone line cut off with a click and all three of them took the time to digest what they had heard. It wasn’t long before Rossi mentioned the one thing that shook Aaron down to the core. “Well that makes things worse.”

“What, that he was a model citizen?” Sometimes werewolves were not the brightest of peoples.

“That he’s been to prison.”

“He knows what happens to child molesters there.”

Aaron’s thoughts caught up and he had to voice them. “If the current sexual allegations are true and he thinks we know it, he’s not comin’ out of there.” Which means he’d be planning some kind of suicide mission for himself and his most devout followers. The demon, always thinking a few steps ahead voiced his opinion that they should make that man think he’s not going back. It was the best plan they had so far. 

“JJ,” Hotch said fairly loudly although she wasn’t sitting too far away, “We need to release a press statement saying that we have absolutely no evidence of sexual allegations.” Which technically they didn’t. 

But JJ didn’t have the chance to even consider writing up that statement. It was clear through their link how pissed off she was about something -presumably not his request- as she all but stomped around the tables to turn on a television newscast currently airing about the case. “You need to see this,” She said. 

The reporter was clearly a newbie in the field, going more for dramatic effect than simply a bland reporting of the events going on as he spoke into the microphone and stared at the camera. It was clear he had no idea that his broadcast was being watched by not just the general public, but also by the FBI and the ranch. He said that the FBI was taking over the situation and that amid much speculation about the hostages an source inside the state attorney’s office had told them that there was an undercover FBI agent currently being held inside the ranch. Aaron didn’t hear much beyond that, running his hands through his dark hair and knowing he was unconsciously pulling a few strands out that had been tucked firmly in place. This was why he hated reporters in general. Most did nothing but make the situation worse. The last thing he picked up on was the fact that at least the reporter was saying there was only one agent inside. Well at least they had that going for them.

“JJ, make sure to get the name of that reporter and the news station he works for,” he ordered snappily but he knew she wouldn’t take it personally. She was just as upset about this as he was. If Prentiss or Reid was killed due to this man’s idiotic need to tell the truth, not only would he be persecuted to the fullest extent of the law but he’d have to deal with a very angry and very vengeful demon, warlock, werewolf and woodland nymph. The fool would never know what hit him.

While JJ went off to do what she was told, Rossi stepped closer to his old friend and rested a hand on his shoulder. They both knew full well who did this and why. There was going to be a very pissed off phone call to the man who dared interfere with his investigation. That and maybe a small hex or two. Like a truth serum that would last the politician the rest of the campaign and ensure he’d never be elected to any kind of position of power again. He knew Rossi would gladly help him out with that one. Either that or make sure his soul was dragged to hell for his crimes.

“They’ll both be okay Aaron,” Dave told him in the old tongue, “They’ll know how to take this curve ball and get out in one piece. Spencer’s got over two thousand years worth of information in that head of his and Emily has managed to get herself out of worse situations than this without getting herself too horribly maimed.” It was sounding like he needed to assurance as much as the unit chief did. 

“Dave, it’s not just them I’m worried about. If Cyrus presses too hard, with Emily the way she is…”

The demon straightened himself and dropped his hand clearly having not thought of that. “Spencer did warn me she hadn’t fed since before they went in.”

A series of expletives went off in both their heads, visibly startling Morgan and JJ. They’d have to explain later. That was not going to be an easy kill to cover up.


	6. Chapter 6

After the creation of the loyalty list, the armed men had taken Spencer and Emily down to the basement that was their makeshift prison where they were left with at least two men watching them to make sure they didn’t try anything funny. Spencer was starting to feel the ache from keeping his wings tucked away out of sight for so long and Emily… well her hunger was starting to show itself physically. She could usually handle twenty four hours without feeding but this was creeping closer to forty eight now. He would have offered her his arm, to drink the blood he was able to emulate due to his knowledge of it’s composition, but he wasn’t sure it would be enough. 

Before he could offer a very irate Benjamin stormed into their prison with Cole following not too far behind fully armed. Immediately Spencer tensed and Emily straightened beside him. She could control herself for now but the spirit could sense this wouldn’t last much longer. He needed to think of something and make it fast. 

“Which one of you is it?” Cyrus asked, looking Spencer over carefully. His decision was already made, that was clear, regardless of what they said. But the spirit didn’t look over to Emily. He kept his attention focused on the man who now upholstered the gun and held it down, while he asked them his question again. “Which one of you is the FBI agent?”

Fuck. A. Duck. How did he find out about that? “Why do you think one of us is an FBI agent?” Spencer ended up asking, glancing at Emily for just a moment to make sure that she was just as surprised about this as he was. He was pretty sure this wasn’t part of some kind of plan he hadn’t been privy to but he wanted to make sure. It only took a few seconds then his gaze refocused on the man threatening them, reading from his body language what his next step was going to be.

Ben removed the safety from the weapon and shook the tension loose from his body. “God will forgive me for what I must do,” he said and raised his gun, aiming it at Spencer’s forehead. Damn. Fuck. Shit. Bitch. This was supposed to be a fairly routine investigation into child molestation allegations by a cult. How did this suddenly become a flash back to that gods forsaken shed in Georgia with the man that had three personalities and too many parental issues to count?

“I don’t- I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Nervousness made his words catch on themselves and shift around when he meant to be sitting still. Guns were never his friends, even if he could avoid any kind of damage by simply disappearing from this plane for a second or two. 

“One of you does. Who is it?”

“Me.” Both Spencer and Benjamin turned their gaze on Prentiss who seemed unusually calm about the situation. “It’s me.” It was both a relief and a point of tension. He tried to look surprised at the fact she was an agent but in truth he was just surprised that she said something. Maybe she saw this as a way to get blood for her system? He hoped she wasn’t going to do what he thought she was going to do. 

Cyrus but his gun away and grabbed the vampire by her hair rather painfully. Spencer wanted to help her, to voice a protest as to her treatment but with Cole’s gun trained on him while she was dragged away by her hair, there really wasn’t much he could do. He just had to hope she could hold on so he closed his eyes and focused all his attention on her. Maybe if he could help her feel that he was there she wouldn’t lose her cool and snap in front of this man. 

The man with the weapon trained on him didn’t do much as it looked like he was praying. That was fine. It allowed for better focus. He could feel her annoyance with him when he spoke to her, the flashes of pain when she was backhanded. Still he kept his focus, trying to keep her calm. He heard the shatter of a mirror as she was thrown against it and snapped out of his trance, brown eyes wide. If she shed blood at all there would be no turning back. Damn all of this! His job went from being the calm hostage to the vampire whisperer.

He could hear from the other room the moment she let him know what she was. She was thrown lightly across the room into the sun but that would be the final blow. “I can take it,” he could faintly make out as she spoke louder, standing up despite the fact her heart was beating now and skin was split open to spill noxious, dead blood. Spencer couldn’t directly see the resulting fight but he knew her style. What sounded like the landing of blows and her cries as if she was being struck were just sounds she was making to fool the humans. In truth she was beating back the human and biting his neck hard enough to spill his blood down her throat at such a rate it would easily quench her hunger. She wasn’t quite mindless, he could sense but he also felt as if it was a near thing. Spencer was good at many things but calming a frenzied vampire wasn’t one of them.

Somehow, probably because she let her guard down at one point, Benjamin still ended up besting her for a few seconds, just enough to knock her to the ground while her body was still absorbing the fresh blood and healing what it needed to heal right away. The old spirit heard the orders to have her tied up and put upstairs, even while the human covered his wound no doubt to get it looked at. At least that meant he was probably weakened enough to ignore how he got it or else think that she was biting him as a general attack like a human would. It was one small catastrophe solved but their luck wouldn’t last. Stay strong, he thought at her even if she couldn’t hear him while they gathered her and carried her upstairs, I’ll get us out of here. Just hold on. 

Only once Cyrus had gone off to tend to his wounds and Spencer acted cowed enough he was lead upstairs to the man’s office. By now he was able to feel that the others at the base camp were able to hear every word as through their link he was able to also pick up, faintly, on their anxiety when Emily was being beaten. He had to get a message out to them, a message that he was waiting for further instructions. He managed to do it when he was trapped by Hankel in Georgia. He’d figure out how to do it here too. 

“Did you know she was FBI?” Ben asked, cleaning his scraped knuckles no doubt to look intimidating. While Spencer acted scared, in truth he really wasn’t. This man was strong enough to beat a half starved vampire. It didn’t mean he was strong enough to take him on, despite his appearance. 

It took him a minute to school his expression into something blank but once he did, he was careful as to how he phrased his answer. “Nancy told me the woman was a child abuse interview expert from Denver.” Which in itself was true. “In the four years I worked with her, Nancy never lied to me before.” Also true. 

“As far as you know.” Cyrus stood slowly, no doubt trying to read him but Spencer wouldn’t let it happen. “Their law says that a fifteen year old girl is a child. Fifty years ago that same law said that a fourteen year old was an adult. Have children changed so much in fifty years?”

Yes, he wanted to say. Of course they have. Society has evolved and the understanding of how events can and will affect a child’s mind. He had never been human but Spencer had watched over the centuries as children suffered and died under conditions that adults couldn’t be subjected to today without someone getting the death penalty for it. Fifty years sometimes made all the difference as children and society changed from generation to generation. But that was not something that this man needed to hear.

“Can’t tell you the number of times I’ve investigated abuse charges against small religious groups.” Well he could but the number was admittedly small. He was going to go with the statistics read over the years on the matter. “Almost all of them turn out to be false.”

“What do you think of that?”

“It really doesn’t matter what I think.”

“It does to me.”

“Why?”

“Because God wants to save you.” Oh by the gods really? He didn’t get enough of this from the outside world, it had to be when he was held hostage by a cult? Not that it was entirely unexpected but he had hoped this wasn’t an eventuality he would have to deal with. Modern religions were no different than the religions of old. He had no part in these new versions, nor did he want to be a part of them. “I mean that’s why he sent you here. That’s the reason.”

Actually, this attempt at conversion might actually be helpful. If he could fake being interested long enough, he could get this man to turn himself in or, failing that, give Hotch, Rossi and Morgan enough time to come up with a plan to storm the place. It only took a few seconds for his plan to fall into place, knowing that the team could hear their every word and likely knew exactly what was going on. “On the next call, you should test them. Test the negotiator. Make him prove he isn’t a liar.”

“And how would you propose I do that?”

Well there were a number of ways but there was a fairly easy way. “Ask for the identity of the FBI agent.”

Chris protested immediately, saying they already knew her identity but Cyrus understood the gist of what he was asking. “But they don’t know that.” Wonderful. A chance to really negotiate.

Yet Chris, being the pain in the ass Devil’s advocate he was just said that that FBI would be unlikely to just hand them this information so Spencer made his suggestion that one child be released in exchange. A sign of trust. He was no negotiator, no military strategist. Surely this was not so difficult to figure out on one’s own. 

Just as they had this figured out, though, yet another curve ball, at least for the cult. People were considering leaving. Wonderful. One more factor that could possibly send this unraveling sociopath on an unpredicted killing spree. Cyrus ordered that the girl who had been orphaned be woken up at that time so she could speak to the negotiator directly. Well, at least one little girl wasn’t going to be killed.

He was escorted back to his small cell to sleep a few hours that night and he went without protest. His shoulders were aching -his wings desperate to be freed- but he knew he’d have to wait until the men were looking away after they threw him inside to release them from how tightly he was holding them against himself. Unless he focused, no mortal untouched by the supernatural would be able to see these appendages but he didn’t know the history of the guards watching him. Now Cyrus, once the sun rose and the majority of the vampire’s bite had flushed through his system, causing small, almost unnoticeable changes, he would be included in those who had been touched and he wouldn’t need to concentrate to show that man his wings. In fact, he’d be the opposite. He’d have to focus to keep them hidden. 

He slept because he was expected to and let his white wings unfold and flop about the bed. It felt good to let them out and drape on the ground around him. The cool material of the ground and the walls eased the worst of his cramps but just barely. What he really needed to do was to disappear from the material world to recuperate or at least give himself the chance to really stretch them out and fly. Instead he just closed his human eyes, let the wings fall wherever they wanted and let the hours just slip by in darkness.

He woke himself just before dawn so that he could fold his wings up small enough against himself they couldn’t be seen even by the Touched, just in time for Chris to aim a gun at his head and forcibly escort him back to that office where the phone would call would happen. He was made to stand in the room while the phone rang and he listened carefully to the conversation on his end. The child was released first -which he did not expect- but the rest of it held true. Once Cyrus got the name he hung up and had Chris assemble everyone in the chapel, even Prentiss. That meant she was alive and would be able to walk down here so that much was good. He just hoped that blood from yesterday was enough to hold her over. 

It took a good fifteen minutes for the congregation to form an in that time, Spencer stood toward the back, waiting patiently for his partner to be brought in. He hadn’t thought that vampires could look so badly battered as she did when he first saw her but apparently she hadn’t had enough fresh blood to clear all of them from her face. He watched her move, looking for more serious sign of injury while Cyrus talked to his people about a lost faith in God. In truth, he was a little more surprised that she wasn’t combusting from the direct contact with the sun’s light and his confusion must have shown on his face. She rolled her eyes and motioned that she had easily been able to get her restraints off to get the lotion on her skin before she slipped back into them for appearances sake. She had already screwed up once. She couldn’t screw up again. 

He made his way to her side while the cultist called out people’s names, far more concerned with her than these people. She was family. These were strangers. “He looks pissed,” she whispered to him as soon as he was close enough to hear it but Spencer couldn’t help but feel guilty over the fact that she was so badly injured due to his stuttering inability to comply with a simple request. She caught his look and no doubt the guilt that radiated through their link. “It’s not as bad as it looks.” 

But he couldn’t keep his guilt to himself either. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered back. If he were the type and this the time or place, he would have gathered her in a hug and apologized thoroughly. As it was, he kept his hands in his pockets and tried to convey his sincerity through words. 

After a moment, though Emily refocused his attention on the here and now, picking up on something he might have noticed earlier if he was paying attention. “Look at who he’s releasing,” she said. He wasn’t usually so good with faces but this time he was.

“It’s the ones who failed the loyalty test.” That meant something big was happening, something that wasn’t going end well. They had to make a move and make it quickly. “I’ll get word to the team. Wait for a sign from outside as to what time the raid will come.” He couldn’t linger near her and hope his plan would work so when Ben was done naming names, he stepped away and walked up the isle, using some bullshit excuse of saying that he reprimanded her for lying. Surprisingly the kook bought it and simple had his men take Prentiss back to her room while the others gathered their belongings to leave. This was it. The final show down was going to happen soon. 

Cyrus called up Rossi and told the man that they would surrender tomorrow at noon. Spencer knew full well this was just a stalling tactic and he was betting the others did too. They wouldn’t wait patiently like this cultist was expecting them to. Still he couldn’t give away exactly what he thought of this tactic either. Until he got a sign as to when the raid was going to happen, he was going to have to do nothing but wait. He was normally a very patient creature but not this time. Not when so many souls, lost to the manipulations of this man, were at stake. His anxiety rose when he heard the man request what sounded disturbingly like a last meal for his loyal followers.

The fact that the lieutenant didn’t know what was going on wasn’t exactly a comforting thought but it was an understandable one. He asked why Cyrus chose to let them go and Spencer wanted to smack the man for his stupidity. “They weren’t prepared to do what needs to be done,” he told the man, who snapped at him for being an outsider. He didn’t raise his gun so there was no need for the old spirit to defend his words. That and Cyrus agreed with what he said anyway. Great minds think alike as the phrase went. 

The cultist instructed him to explain to Chris what he meant and Spencer didn’t mind that. “They failed the test. They had a chance to prove their faith when Cyrus told them that they had sacrificed themselves for God but instead they showed that they weren’t worthy.” He was kind of glad he had to explain this out loud. It would help Rossi and the others understand what stage this nutcase was at in his grand plan. “It’s why he wants the media attention; to bear witness to your true act of sacrifice.”

Chris stared at him, as if he had two heads. Not quite true but it was closer than this form would show. “How do you know that?”

The genius looked the man in the eye and said in a very calm manner. “I’m always looking for signs of things to come.”


	7. Chapter 7

Aaron looked up at his friend when Rossi told him that Reid was clearly speaking to them. He wants a sign of when we’re coming in. As calming as the sound of the old creature weaving his web of half truths and gentle lies was to the warlock, the fact that he had no choice but to speak in riddles was stressful in and of itself. Now there was a raid to plan, one that could determine the fate of everything and Rossi voiced that sentiment aloud. “He’s saying this is it! Time has run out! We gotta go in!”

The warlock slipped the headset from over his ears and went to get Morgan so that an appropriate plan for attack could be made while Rossi handled making sure the food the cultist asked for was ordered and brought in. Together they scoured the maps and thought of ways they could do this without getting anyone too badly hurt on either side. The ranch was large and had multiple entry points but given the sound of things they needed a more focused approach. Aaron really wished he could strengthen the spell he was using to keep their telepathy going. He could use some of Reid’s or Prentiss’ insight on this.

“Drugging the food is not an option because of the children,” he said, mostly to himself as he went through his mental checklist, “We have to go in.” Even the potions he could conjure might seriously harm a child if they accidentally ate too much of the tainted food and in order to make sure the adults were drugged enough they’d have to keep things set for adult levels. Going in was really their only option.

“Best time to hit ‘em is when they’re least mentally prepared.” Of course a demon would know when that was. It was how he handled most of his business.

“Three AM,” Dan added a second later, “Biorhythms are at their lowest point then.” It was also when Hotch’s magic was at its strongest and Morgan and Prentiss reached their peak for the night. Rossi’s strength came from sources other than the moon so his really didn’t vary and Reid wasn’t enough of a fighter for Aaron to notice any kind of pattern. The food was prepared and stacked to be brought in while they spoke, all of them trying not to be distracted by the very smell of it.

But in order to get them in… “We need a diversion,” Morgan said “something that plays into their expectations.” It was getting uncanny how, even without the telepathy they could finish each other’s thoughts out loud. 

Dan had an answer to match it too. Aaron was starting to like this guy, despite the circumstances. “Cyrus brought up Waco,” he said, waiting just long enough for Rossi to confirm before he got to his feet, “I know exactly how to use that. We need some hum-vees.” 

Aaron hadn’t been at the disaster they were talking about but he got the idea of what they were going for with this. While Dan went to get the right calls put in, the remaining three of them focused on the task at hand. “The plan depends on Reid and Prentiss separating the diehards from the followers,” the warlock said, drawing out his plan on the dry erase board more to give them a physical manifestation than really needing to explain it to the others.

“And delaying Cyrus’ diehards from reacting to our assault,” Morgan added.

“Right but that’s not my main concern. Reid and Prentiss know what they need to do.” Other than basically survive until the raid. 

“So what is your concern?”

“Letting them know when we’re coming. This whole thing hinges on them being ready at three A.M.”

Morgan sat up in his chair, leaning in a little and frowning. “I thought that our uh-” he tapped at his temple to signify what they weren’t going to talk about in front of the humans, “-worked on them too. Can’t we just tell them that way?”

“It doesn’t work like that, not with a church and several feet of desert sand and rock between me and the targets.”

Dan talked his people into putting the bugs into the food boxes as quickly as possible before the food gets too cold. Aaron, however, had a much simpler plan. He grabbed on of the metal tins for the food and went to the nearest desk where a red pen sat. He would write in the old tongue but that would look suspicious. It had to be something that Spencer, with all his vast knowledge, could read and easily decipher but Cyrus and his lacks wouldn’t see as anything out of the ordinary and therefore wouldn’t be suspicious of. He wrote a message about a new menu and this particular restaurant being open ‘til 3 AM. “Let’s hope it’s just that easy,” Morgan said over his shoulder. Hotch hoped it was too.

When all the food was packed away properly, the team turned their focus on the cameras to watch as the uniformed officers brought the food to the steps of the church. Well, Dave and Aaron did. Morgan’s werewolf eyes didn’t need the help, even when he saw a shift in one of the windows, a boot lifting the blinds. He drew Aaron’s attention away from the door for a second to point it out. “Prentiss?” 

“Yeah I think so.”

“I’m gonna go let her know about the time. I’m pretty sure Reid’s gonna get the food bit.” 

“Then go but be careful.” They couldn’t risk getting caught now. 

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Spencer didn’t expect for the message as to the time to be sent in such a format but if it worked it worked. 3 AM. He could do that. He didn’t need to sleep and Prentiss would be wide awake by then anyway. It would be a simple matter for her to free herself and get the non-combatants down to the tunnels. He just had to focus on keeping the armed men in one place and unsuspecting of anything until the right moment. It was easier said than done really.

“I know what you’re thinking” Cyrus said, tossing an empty tin over the one with the encoded message, thereby drawing the spirit’s attention to him, “You don’t have to be a part of this. You can go.”

And leave Emily to handle this by herself? Not a chance. “I think I’d prefer to stay. Somebody needs to tell your story.” Why not have it be the genius that was once in charge of the largest library in all of Roman Empire?

Benjamin seemed to agree too. “Then I’m glad it’ll be you.” It sounded as if the man was fond of him… something that disturbed Spencer a little bit, especially given Cyrus’ taste for teenage girls. 

He continued to speak, although now to the men who were gathering the needed supplies in the chapel. “Now that the false believers have been cleared from our midst, we make our final preparation.” Spencer felt his wings contract tighter against his back when he saw the man pull sticks of dynamite from one of the boxes. Shit. Just shit. This was going from bad to worse with each moment that passed. Why didn’t he listen to the omens when they warned him against this kind of thing? It certainly would be better for his human heart if he did.

He closed his eyes for a moment, gathering a mental image of what was going on and sending it to Emily, wherever she was in the compound. He could feel her mild surprise at the image but he wasn’t able to hold onto it for long. His concentration was shot due to his nerves. If he wasn’t careful he was going to lose control of his wings too and that wasn’t a weapon he was ready to brandish this early in the game. Religious fanatics like Cyrus usually took the presence of a winged man in one of two ways; either he was an illusion sent by the Devil to deceive them or he was a messenger from God himself. In case it was option number one, Spencer needed to wait and see what the plan was. He just hoped that he’d be able to stop enough of it before this sacred land was further desecrated by bloodshed.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As three AM approached, Aaron Hotchner stood at the edge of their mini headquarters, looking out over the compound where the man he was steadily admitting to himself that he might have romantic feelings for and the closest thing he’s ever had to a sister were trapped, waiting for the signal and preparing for the war to begin. His heart was heavy in his chest with the possibility of how this might turn out, although he would have to wait until a little closer to the hour in question before he could cast any sort of protection charms. The sooner before the event the spell was cast, the more effective it was.

He almost didn’t notice when Dave walked up next to him but he could feel the determination radiating through their link, despite the actual mind-reading portion having faded away hours ago. “I know I can’t go in there,” he said, hating the fact a little more after he said it aloud. 

“I’m going.”

“If something happens to Prentiss or Reid I-” Aaron sighed and rubbed at his dark brow, “I don’t know.” If anyone on his team was ever killed, he didn’t know what he’d do. He held them all so close to his heart, almost as close as he held Jack and Haley although Spencer was slowly but surely creeping closer to that status. 

Dave brushed their shoulders together for just a second, a reassuring gesture between friends. “You’re not alone,” he said and turned away to get ready. All Aaron could do for now was watch and hope that everything would turn out okay. At least until his watch would go off. Then he’d cast the spell that his team -his family- hopefully would not need in the end. 

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Spencer watched in morbid fascination as Cyrus and his men so casually built the bombs that would destroy the compound and everyone within it, including the women and children that the cultist professed to love so much. His mind was quick to catalogue how they were built, what their triggers were and how large the blast radius would be. The casualty list was going to be far too high at this rate and time was running out. He was starting to panic a bit but for now he had it under control. Even Emily was calm and controlled wherever she was.

Even if he tried to make a run for it, the man at the door was watching him, automatic weapon aimed at his torso should he try to make a break for it, although he was told that if he wanted to, he could leave. This backwards cult was very contradictory indeed. The lieutenant ran in, telling Cyrus that something was wrong. Spencer cursed his luck in his head. Had they been tipped off early as to the raid? He wore his watch but it had died long before. He had no idea what time it was.

Together the pair went to the door and removed the wood they were using to barricade it, presumably to look outside. Spencer could hear, even from where he was standing, the sound of the armored vehicles making their way up the path toward the compound’s doors. It was getting to the point where it was literally now or never. He could see Cyrus talking to his next in charge and his body language said he was upset about something, no doubt the raid that he thought wasn’t going to happen. Spencer knew the next move the human would logically make. He just had to try to delay it long enough.

He started to formulate a plan as Cyrus stepped out of the chapel and fired his gun, probably to get the media’s attention. It didn’t take long for the thoughts in the old spirit’s head to start piecing together that particular puzzle into perfect clarity. One man could not set all these bombs off at once. He’d need the help of the diehards. If he could plant a seed of doubt in the diehards…

 

Another of the diehards came forward, saying that there was the sound of gunfire coming from inside the building. The raid had begun. Fuck. “Go check the fuses,” Cyrus ordered, leaning in the corner of the room with his weapon up while his second went to the door to wait for the first wave. Spencer could sense Emily getting further away, presumably heading downstairs with the non-combatants. He knew he didn’t have to worry about her now. She was safe and sound. She’d be in the arms of their comrades soon if she wasn’t already. Now he just have to focus on his part of the job. 

So Spencer stepped up next to the lieutenant, well out of reach of his gun and began quoting Jeremiah at the man, trying to get him to hear his words and understand that he was being manipulated. The only way to combat religion was with religion. He wasn’t aware that Cyrus would have so little faith in his own men as he would feel the need to defend them to the point of violence. Usually cult leaders were much more egocentric than that.

Without much preamble the human stepped close enough to press the barrel of his gun to Spencer’s chest. “Do you think you know the Word better than I?” Yes, he wanted to say. Of course I do. I was there when the Word was first written and saw myself the events that very book described. But he was still playing human, still delaying the inevitable.

“No, I’m just demonstrating that you can use the Bible to manipulate anything.”

“Matthew 10:24: Do not suppose that I have come to the Earth to bring peace. I did not come to bring peace but a sword.” The butt of the gun, driven into Spencer’s abdomen sent shockwaves of pain through the genius he could only remember really experiencing at the hands of Hankel those years ago. He cried out and leaned over, trying to protect his stomach but Cyrus didn’t plan on letting him stay still for long. “You cannot convert my brothers,” he said and struck Spencer again. 

This time the spirit did fall to the ground, his concentration momentarily broken thereby allowing his wings to fold out as naturally as they should, working to help him keep his balance although they were not entirely on this plane. The could see the look of shock and surprise in the human’s eyes at the sight of them and used that to his advantage. “I don’t need to convert them,” he said, letting the wings spread across the ground to keep his balance, “I just need them to see that it is a man, not God, that commands them to die this day for him.”

“No one had to follow,” Cyrus said after a long moment, holding the remote to the dynamite his people had planted around the compound, “God could have stopped me.” Well, it might have been God or it might have been the SWAT team that just walked in, guns blazing as they shot the lieutenant before Morgan stepped in and shot Cyrus himself.

Spencer took the opportunity to sit up then, spreading his wings wide open to help him stand in a moment, while he looked at the dead man. He felt something like a combination of relief and overall smugness. “He just did,” he spat at the body of the man who had just caused the deaths of far too many good people.


	8. Chapter 8

In all his centuries as an observer of mankind and then as an active participant amongst them (though due to no fault of his own) Spencer had never seen another human being act as irrationally as fifteen year old Jessica did during the raid. Cyrus had been disposed of and his men all dead or tranquilized. Every soul that wasn’t carrying a gun in the compound was doing to be able to leave safe and sound. Spencer was going to be so proud of his efforts and Morgan was going to chew him out for getting himself caught in a situation like this yet again. 

But no. This girl just had to run into the chapel to find her husband, only to lose it when she saw his body without breath. Spencer saw her reaching for the remote and knew that they had no time. He grabbed Morgan by the Kevlar and screamed for everyone to run. The doors were thrown open. They only way they were going to make it is if they got out of the way of the blast. 

In the end they couldn’t get far enough at least for Spencer’s taste and when he saw the flash of light he knew he had choice. Without thinking he pulled Morgan down, using his supernatural strength and wrapped himself around his friend, using his body and his wings to cover the living being in his arms protective. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the flash of light and let the solidarity of his body fade until he was just a mass of energy. He would absorb the impact of the blast at least and any falling debris should miss them. He could barely manage to hold onto this intermediate form when the first wave struck through his energy. This was a much deeper pain than the butt of a gun to the stomach. This seemed to tear holes in his very essence. He was just lucky the distortion of his energy took a lot of the strength out of his screams.

It took seconds for the last of the explosion to echo through but it took Spencer long moments to regain enough of himself to form a physical body again, even with metaphysical wings. He all but fell off of Derek’s back, his ears barely able to hear the wolf calling his name out of concern. He lay still as he was gathered, his wings dragging a bit as one disappeared through the solid body of his coworker and the other got caught in the ground beneath him, and carried back to where they others were. His brown eyes blinked as he tried to refocus and he coughed roughly in the man’s arms. It would take a day or so for him to completely center himself again. Well either that or a good night’s sleep. It was hard to figure out which one it would be.

He could feel Derek talking through the vibrations in the wolf’s chest, even through the Kevlar, and the odd sensation of being transferred into a different pair of arms. He curled towards the new body, the scent comfortingly grounding so he unconsciously clung to it. With some effort he folded the wing that wasn’t folded uncomfortable against his back (thanks to the way he was transferred) around the person to have a better grip on them. He closed his eyes and just concentrated on keeping his form physical until they got back to the hotel. Then he could fade away and rest for a while.

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Aaron Hotchner felt his heart clench in his chest when he saw Morgan emerge from the rubble that was chapel with a barley conscious Spencer Reid in his arms. He looked moments away from seizing perhaps, and his wings, his beautiful wings were in such tatters as they dragged on the ground. He could vaguely hear Derek calling for him, telling him what was happening but his attention was too focused on that battered body in his arms. He rushed forward, through the crowds of people who were being ushered away from the chapel, and gently took the burden from his co-workers arms. It was only when he held him and realized that even though Spencer looked so real he was no more material than anything else. He was far too light, even if he still had a significant weight in his arms and although his hands could feel the material and the frame of his body beneath those clothes, he knew that was no more real than any other ghost.

He lifted his head to say something, to give orders to someone and passed by but Rossi already had it and Prentiss was walking to a woman who give her some kind of bad news and Morgan was walking away to help guide civilians away from the explosion with JJ. After he gave the LEO orders the old demon turned to his friend and said “You’re the best one to help him now. He needs to be grounded.”

Grounding work… he could do that. It was a part of the mediation he needed for much more complex spell work and he had talked himself through it a number of times. Only this time, he was going to have to talk to a semi-conscious ancient roman spirit working to keep himself as material as possible while recovering from this kind of wound if it could be called that. Maybe it was more of a distortion? Aaron knew he’d get a headache if he thought about it too much.

So he walked away from the crowds of people that were gathering outside the compound, weaving his way through until he got to the SUV he and the others had used to drive out here. He’d have to go pick them up later, no doubt, after the few hours it would take to get all of this settled but hopefully in that time, Spencer would have recovered enough that he could be left alone for a few hours. As it was he kept flickering in and out of sight, even as the warlock carefully maneuvered him into the passenger seat of the truck and buckled him in. He would have lain the spirit out on the back seat if he wasn’t overly concerned about the distance causing Spencer to lose focus and therefore allowing him to literally fade through the truck and end up on the street. That would be a bitch and a half to explain to the person who caused an accident to avoid hitting him.

“Just listen to my voice, Spencer,” Aaron said as he buckled himself in, not bothering to remove the Kevlar as he did so, “Listen to me and keep focused on what you hear. Breathe deeply, feel the air filling your lungs, expanding them, stretching them out a little bit. Now let that air go along with some of the pain and confusion.” He got the key in the ignition and turned on the car, turning his head to see out the back window as he backed out as quickly as he could into an area where he wouldn’t have a problem driving forward and onto the street. “Breath in deeply again. Envision yourself solidifying. Imagine the feel of the chair you’re sitting on and the belt that’s strapped you in. Smell the air of the car and hear my voice. Now breathe out and let some more of that confusion go.”

After every sentence the warlock listened to make sure his words were being heard, his little commands were being followed, and he took comfort in the fact that they were. Even with his earlier spell that would have allowed him to feel the emotions of the other male completely dissipated by now he could tell that his words were working so he kept it up as best he could while giving as much attention possible to driving. He didn’t push the speed limits, although he wanted to. Spencer would make it so long as he didn’t cause any further stress that might get him to lose his focus. Thankfully the hotel wasn’t that far. Barely five minutes of talking and they were about half way there. 

When they arrived at the hotel, Aaron found a parking spot very close to the entrance that wasn’t marked as a handicapped spot and paused in his speech just long enough to step out of the car and walk around to the other side so he could get Spencer out the normal way. It was difficult to try and compensate for the extra weight of the wing that fell through the car as if it wasn’t there when he was holding onto his subordinate, but somehow he managed to long enough to get the door closed, the sound making the agent in his arms focus a little more on himself and therefore able to coordinate getting the white wing up and over to fold around Hotch’s opposite shoulder. For being metaphysical -therefore made of energy- it felt warm and soft, even with his clothes blocking the sensation.

The staff of the hotel was surprised, some of them alarmed, when he walked through the lobby with his burden toward the room he was sharing with Dave on the first floor, still muttering although more quietly about breathing in and out and focusing on the here and now. Thankfully the old spirit didn’t flicker within sight of anyone and through the use of some small bit of magic, Aaron was able to get the door open without having the card in his hand as to search for it in his pockets would have required him to put Spencer down and right now that really wasn’t an option. 

He lay his burden down on the nearest bed, waving a hand with a push of a spell to get the door closed and locked as he took off his Kevlar and tossed it aside, his words never wavering although now he was shifting from deep breathing to focusing on the very human sensations around the other male. He was starting to flicker less and his tattered wings were starting to look better. Desperate to make sure that this wasn’t just an illusion being put on for him, Aaron gently held Spencer’s face between his palms to give both himself and his coworker something solid to focus on. “Come on Spencer, you can do this. You’re doing so well already. You’re almost there. Just a little longer. Once you’re all better you can sleep, alright? I know you’re tired but you’re almost there Spencer. Almost.”

Hazel eyes slowly opened to meet Aaron’s own dark ones and hands that were still flickering occasionally in and out of this plane of existence held onto the warlock’s arms just above his elbows. “Thank… you…” Spencer said, his voice distorted by his varying existence, “…for…helping me… Particle… distortion… isn’t e-easy… to recover… from…” 

“I thought you were made of energy.”

Spencer’s body tensed and his back arched sharply, almost painfully for a moment before he flickered out of sight for a moment or two then came back. His cry of pain was half there and half not. “I-I am… but… energy… is made from … particles…”

“How can I help?”

“Old…summoning… ritual… the same… one… G-Gideon… used…”

“What will that do?”

“F-force…my particles… to g-gather in… one place…”

Aaron thought over the ingredients he had, trying to make sure he’d have enough but there were a few key, rare items that he certainly couldn’t find in time. He needed to think of an alternative and quickly. Gideon wasn’t here for advice and Rossi was back at the crime scene. It would look odd he used a spell and suddenly summoned the being here. He needed to think of something else. What would he have used to ground himself if he was so desperately confused by his surroundings?

Incense! That’s it. The warm smell if incense often helped to keep him grounded and if he used it properly he could not only ground Spencer but use his own magic to keep the smoke from triggering the alarms. 

But as he moved to get up from where he was he was held in place by the hands on his upper arms. He paused, startled, but the cool hands didn’t let go. “S-Stay… I-I can handle this… as long… as you stay here…”

Hotch wanted to argue, he really did, but found he couldn’t when those brown eyes looked at him with such pain in them and the hands on his arms held him so tightly. So instead of getting up, he shifted so that he was lying on the bed next to the old spirit and continued to talk to him, keeping a hand on his cheek so that there was something physical to ground the genius while he continued to speak and hold the figure as close as possible. He felt bad about laying on one of the metaphysical wings but it phased right through him. It felt odd but he was more focused on helping the young man -or at least the spirit that looked like one- recover from this traumatizing event.

How long it took exactly before Spencer Reid was able to recover from the events of that day Aaron didn’t know but by the time his subordinate had recovered enough that it was safe for him to sleep -or so Aaron thought- his throat was sore and he felt exhausted himself from the stress. He didn’t notice really the way his thumb kept brushing the soft skin of the other’s jaw from time to time when he spoke or even how he rank his fingers through soft brown hair, natural now and free from the gel of the day as a soothing gesture to help Spencer sleep. In fact, when he got up from the bed to go get himself a cup of water from the faucet, the sight of Dave standing in the hallway, watching them with a smile on his face, startled the warlock enough that he had almost reached for a gun. Almost.

“Damn it, Dave!” he hissed and went to grab the cup to get himself some water from the fountain down the hall instead. At least then he wouldn’t have to worry about waking the clearly exhausted agent from his well earned sleep. He didn’t even have to say anything for the demon to follow him out of the door although the annoying smug smirk on the older being’s face certainly didn’t need to be seen to be felt.

Only once the door was closed did Rossi deign to speak. “And you thought he wouldn’t be interested. I swear you humans and your insecurities are always a source of amusement.”

“He never said he was interested Dave. He just needed someone to ground him and I was there for him. Morgan could have done the same thing. So could you.”

Rossi’s laugh wasn’t cruel but it was certainly condescending. “I doubt it Aaron. The genius species isn’t one I’ve really interacted with very much until now but from what I do now, they’re a group that bond strongly to the source of their existence. Their whole life revolves around that person or place. You say he was a genius of knowledge before Gideon made him one of protection right? That means he literally spent his time living and breathing knowledge in what was probably a library before he was forcibly removed.”

Hotch paused and turned around, looking his old friend in the eye and hoping this wasn’t going where he thought he was going. “Gideon bound him to the team, Dave. It’s why the BAU is what he lives and breathes for now.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Why would I have to doubt that? He was abducted in Georgia when it could have easily been JJ and he might have gotten out of it if he wasn’t a protection and thus had to endure it on her behalf.”

Rossi frowned. He hadn’t been there to witness it himself but he had done enough searching through Aaron’s head to know the incident as if he had been there. He nodded his acknowledgement of this fact but he didn’t look overly concerned like he lost. “Point. But Aaron, since then, have you noticed how he’s changed? Especially after Gideon’s left?”

The warlock closed his eyes and thought back over the time since the incident. It wasn’t all that long ago but Spencer seemed to try to become more independent and less of a child-like personality. He didn’t quite take command but he was in more control of himself and seemed more confident. Aaron had attributed that to no longer being treated like a son Gideon never had and returning more to his natural self but…

“He takes after the desires of the one who needs him the most and right this second, it’s you. It’s part of his job as a protection spirit but I think it’s also got some very personal ties too. His kind always were attracted to those who could touch the spirits in the old days.”

Aaron’s frown deepened as he thought this over but Dave was done pushing for now. Somehow Hotch knew that the demon believed his work was done and it had nothing to do with the years they had spent working together. There was no discussion about the new sleeping arrangements. There was no need to verbally acknowledge the fact that Aaron needed some time to think about what was said before he could decide what he wanted to do with the information he was given. Rossi turned on his heel and walked back towards the room he would be sharing with Morgan tonight while Aaron continued on his way to get his cup of water. He had a feeling this was going to be the beginning of something complicated and far from easy but at this point there was no real turning back. All he could hope for was that the causality list would be kept at a minimum loss.


End file.
